Breakfast at Ailana Shave Ice

Ailana Shave Ice, one of my go-to spots for shave ice, recently started serving breakfast, and it's like everything I love about its shave ice—fresh fruit flavors and the uji kintoki, a shave ice sundae with green tea syrup, azuki beans, mochi and ice cream—is now available in breakfast form. There's a green tea waffle with all the components of the uji kintoki, even the mochi, and all of it drizzled with green tea syrup. It's not the crispiest waffle I've had, but the flavors are good. Fluffy, tender pancakes arrive with fresh cut fruit, including avocado. On the side: maple syrup as well as coconut and mango syrup, more of Ailana's housemade fruit syrups. It's kind of genius, the repurposing of shave ice syrups for breakfast.

The chicken fried rice omelette is popular, but it's not my favorite—the fried rice is more like a ketchup-y rice. I'll stick with sweet things at Ailana. Expect a leisurely breakfast here; everything is prepared and cut to order, including that fruit salad that accompanies the pancakes.

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